Dialogue-Games: Metacommunication structures for natural language interaction

Our studies of naturally occurring human dialogue have led to the recognition of a class of regularities which characterize impoltant aspects of communication. People appear to interact according to established patterns which span several turns in a dialogue and which recur frequently. These patterns appear to be organized around the goals which the dialogue serves for each participant. Many things which are said later in a dialogue can only be interpreted as pursuit of these goals, established by earlier dialogue. These patterns have been represented b) a set of knowledge structures called Dialogue-Games, capturing shared, conventional knowledge that people have about communication and how it can be used to achieve goals. A Dialogue-Game has Parameters, which represent those elements that vary across instances of a particular pattern-the particular dialogue participants and the content topic. The states of the world which must be in effect for a particular Dialogue-Game to be employed successfully are represented by Specifications of these Parameters. Finally, the expected sequence of intermediate states that occur during instances of a particular conventional pattern are represented by the Components of the corresponding Dialogue-Game. Representations for several Dialogue-Games are presented here, based on our analyses of different kinds of naturally occurring dialogue. A process model is discussed, showing Dialogue-Game identification, pursuit, and termination as part of the comprehension of dialogue utterances. This Dialogue-Game model captures some of the important functional aspects of language, especially indirect uses to achieve implicit communication.     

Another psychobiological view of sexual differentiation

The major psychobiological theory of sex differences is based on the hypothesis that hormones induce sex differences in neural organization. Hormonally masculinized or feminized brains are thought to underlie subsequent behavioral sex differences. This theory and the constructs, arguments, and evidence used in its support are closely examined. Some conceptual problems with widely used arguments are identified and discussed. Behavioral, physiological, and anatomical evidence from studies of animal sexual behavior is reviewed. It is concluded that the evidence fails to support generally accepted views that early hormones affect behavior through direct effects on brain differentiation and that behavioral differences must be located in the brain. It is argued instead that hormones coact and interact with other factors throughout development, that brain differences may result from as well as cause functional differences, and that hormone-based sources of sex differences may be located throughout the body and in the social surround. Directions for new research are suggested and implications for interpretation of human sex differences are discussed.